Today I feel like a proud father because I’ve just received the final draft for the map of Northern Tikhon, our home-brew fantasy setting.
It’s exciting to share this because, over the past 18 months or so, this campaign setting has grown from the merest mention of the town of Mortenburg into a full continent of adventure. Most of the content has arisen from conversations with players, making it a genuinely collaborative effort. Some of the places on the map will probably elude the player’s memory… but very little of it has sprung whole-cloth from my own head.
Here’s an image for you to peruse:
Northern Tikhon by the hand of Patrick Trempond.
Our cartographer is the talented and very busy Patrick Trempond (you can see his work at http://depassage.deviantart.com/gallery/). Working from a very rough by-hand sketch, Patrick faithfully rendered the outline of the continent. From here, as the work progressed, I was able to slowly add details as they arose from the game and discussions with players.
Although Northern Tikhon is the smaller of two major continents on the pentagonal flat-world, it is more than enough for us to game over and hints of expansion in years to come. My aim is to keep running fantasy games within the setting, developing and adapting the details as we play. The next step for Patrick is to render a detailed GM’s map of the central area around Mortenburg, where the core action of the current campaign is happening.
One thing my players keep saying is that they find it hard to visualise the world, especially as things grow. Hopefully this map will go a long way towards helping them do just that.
And it’s really nicely done too.
Game on!
